Linking the witness simulation software to an expert system to represent a decision-making process

Expert systems, and artificial intelligence more generally, can provide a useful means for representing decision-making processes. By linking expert systems software to simulation software an effective means of including these decision-making processes in a simulation model can be achieved. This paper demonstrates how a commercial-off-the-shelf simulation package (Witness) can be linked to an expert systems package (XpertRule) through a Visual Basic interface. The methodology adopted could be used for models, and possibly software, other than those presented here.

Public sector investment appraisal:the place of flexibility in the decision making process

This thesis reviews the main methodological developments in public sector investment appraisal and finds growing evidence that appraisal techniques are not fulfilling their earlier promise. It is suggested that an important reason for this failure lies in the inability of these techniques to handle uncertainty except in a highly circumscribed fashion. It is argued that a more fruitful approach is to strive for flexibility. Investment projects should be formulated with a view to making them responsive to a wide range of possible future events, rather than embodying a solution which is optimal for one configuration of circumstances only. The distinction drawn in economics between the short and the long run is used to examine the nature of flexibility. The concept of long run flexibility is applied to the pre-investment range of choice open to the decisionmaker. It is demonstrated that flexibility is reduced at a very early stage of decisionmaking by the conventional system of appraisal which evaluates only a small number of options. The pre-appraisal filtering process is considered further in relation to decisionmaking models. It is argued that for public sector projects the narrowing down of options is best understood in relation to an amended mixed scanning model which places importance on the process by which the 'national interest ' is determined. Short run flexibility deals with operational characteristics, the degree to which particular projects may respond to changing demands when the basic investment is already in place. The tension between flexibility and cost is noted. A short case study on the choice of electricity generating plant is presented. The thesis concludes with a brief examination of the approaches used by successive British governments to public sector investment, particularly in relation to the nationalised industries

The influence of context on the strategic decision-making process:a review of the literature

This paper critically reviews the strategic decision-making process literature, with a specific focus on the effects of context. Context refers to the top management team, strategic decision-specific characteristics, the external environment and firm characteristics. This literature review also develops an illustrative framework that incorporates these four different categories of contextual variables that influence the strategic decision-making process. As a result of the variety and pervasiveness of contextual variables featured within the literature, a comprehensive and up-to-date review is essential for organizing and synthesizing the extant literature to explicate an agenda for future research. The purpose of this literature review is threefold: first, to critically review the strategic decision-making process literature to highlight the underlying themes, issues, tensions and debates in the field; second, to identify the opportunities for future theory development; and third, to state the methodological implications arising from this review. © 2013 British Academy of Management and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

An empirical examination of the strategic decision-making process:the relationship between context, process, and outcomes

Despite concerted academic interest in the strategic decision-making process (SDMP) since the 1980s, a coherent body of theory capable of guiding practice has not materialised. This is because many prior studies focus only on a single process characteristic, often rationality or comprehensiveness, and have paid insufficient attention to context. To further develop theory, research is required which examines: (i) the influence of context from multiple theoretical perspectives (e.g. upper echelons, environmental determinism); (ii) different process characteristics from both synoptic formal (e.g. rationality) and political incremental (e.g. politics) perspectives, and; (iii) the effects of context and process characteristics on a range of SDMP outcomes. Using data from 30 interviews and 357 questionnaires, this thesis addresses several opportunities for theory development by testing an integrative model which incorporates: (i) five SDMP characteristics representing both synoptic formal (procedural rationality, comprehensiveness, and behavioural integration) and political incremental (intuition, and political behaviour) perspectives; (ii) four SDMP outcome variables—strategic decision (SD) quality, implementation success, commitment, and SD speed, and; (iii) contextual variables from the four theoretical perspectives—upper echelons, SD-specific characteristics, environmental determinism, and firm characteristics. The present study makes several substantial and original contributions to knowledge. First, it provides empirical evidence of the contextual boundary conditions under which intuition and political behaviour positively influence SDMP outcomes. Second, it establishes the predominance of the upper echelons perspective; with TMT variables explaining significantly more variance in SDMP characteristics than SD specific characteristics, the external environment, and firm characteristics. A newly developed measure of top management team expertise also demonstrates highly significant direct and indirect effects on the SDMP. Finally, it is evident that SDMP characteristics and contextual variables influence a number of SDMP outcomes, not just overall SD quality, but also implementation success, commitment, and SD speed.

Electronic information sharing in local government authorities:factors influencing the decision-making process

Local Government Authorities (LGAs) are mainly characterised as information-intensive organisations. To satisfy their information requirements, effective information sharing within and among LGAs is necessary. Nevertheless, the dilemma of Inter-Organisational Information Sharing (IOIS) has been regarded as an inevitable issue for the public sector. Despite a decade of active research and practice, the field lacks a comprehensive framework to examine the factors influencing Electronic Information Sharing (EIS) among LGAs. The research presented in this paper contributes towards resolving this problem by developing a conceptual framework of factors influencing EIS in Government-to-Government (G2G) collaboration. By presenting this model, we attempt to clarify that EIS in LGAs is affected by a combination of environmental, organisational, business process, and technological factors and that it should not be scrutinised merely from a technical perspective. To validate the conceptual rationale, multiple case study based research strategy was selected. From an analysis of the empirical data from two case organisations, this paper exemplifies the importance (i.e. prioritisation) of these factors in influencing EIS by utilising the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique. The intent herein is to offer LGA decision-makers with a systematic decision-making process in realising the importance (i.e. from most important to least important) of EIS influential factors. This systematic process will also assist LGA decision-makers in better interpreting EIS and its underlying problems. The research reported herein should be of interest to both academics and practitioners who are involved in IOIS, in general, and collaborative e-Government, in particular. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Purchase decision-making in fair trade and the ethical 'gap':'is there a fair trade twix?'

Children are increasingly being recognised as a significant force in the retail market place, as primary consumers, influencers of others, and as future customers. This paper adds to the literature on children as consumers by exploring their attitudinal responses to a specific group of products: Fair Trade lines. There has been no research to date that has specifically addressed children as consumers of Fair Trade or the ethical purchase decision-making process in this area. The methodological approach taken here is an essentially interpretive and naturalistic analysis of two focus groups of school children. The analysis found that there is an urgent need to develop meaningful Fair Trade brands that combine strong brand knowledge and positive brand images to bridge the ethical purchase gap between the formation of clear ethical attitudes and actual ethical purchase behaviour. Such an approach would both capture more of the children’s primary market and influence future purchase behaviour. It is argued that Fair Trade actors should coordinate new marketing communications campaigns that build brand knowledge structures holistically around the Fair Trade process and that extend beyond merely raising consumer awareness.

Decision making in nuclear waste management:the use of the synoptic approach

This thesis is concerned with the use of the synoptic approach within decision making concerning nuclear waste management. The synoptic approach to decision making refers to an approach to rational decision making that assumes as an ideal, comprehensiveness of information and analysis. Two case studies are examined in which a high degree of synoptic analysis has been used within the decision making process. The case studies examined are the Windscale Inquiry into the decision to build the THORP reprocessing plant and the Nirex safety assessment of nuclear waste disposal. The case studies are used to test Lindblom's hypothesis that a synoptic approach to decision making is not achievable. In the first case study Lindblom's hypothesis is tested through the evaluation of the decision to build the THORP plant, taken following the Windscale Inquiry. It is concluded that the incongruity of this decision supports Lindblom's hypothesis. However, it has been argued that the Inquiry should be seen as a legitimisation exercise for a decision that was effectively predetermined, rather than a rigorous synoptic analysis. Therefore, the Windscale Inquiry does not provide a robust test of the synoptic method. It was concluded that a methodology was required, that allowed robust conclusions to be drawn, despite the ambiguity of the role of the synoptic method in decision making. Thus, the methodology adopted for the second case study was modified. In this case study the synoptic method was evaluated directly. This was achieved through the analysis of the cogency of the Nirex safety assessment. It was concluded that the failure of Nirex to provide a cogent synoptic analysis supported Lindblom's criticism of the synoptic method. Moreover, it was found that the synoptic method failed in the way that Lindblom predicted that it would.

Supporting decision-making for self-adaptive systems:from goal models to dynamic decision networks

Context/Motivation - Different modeling techniques have been used to model requirements and decision-making of self-adaptive systems (SASs). Specifically, goal models have been prolific in supporting decision-making depending on partial and total fulfilment of functional (goals) and non-functional requirements (softgoals). Different goalrealization strategies can have different effects on softgoals which are specified with weighted contribution-links. The final decision about what strategy to use is based, among other reasons, on a utility function that takes into account the weighted sum of the different effects on softgoals. Questions/Problems - One of the main challenges about decisionmaking in self-adaptive systems is to deal with uncertainty during runtime. New techniques are needed to systematically revise the current model when empirical evidence becomes available from the deployment. Principal ideas/results - In this paper we enrich the decision-making supported by goal models by using Dynamic Decision Networks (DDNs). Goal realization strategies and their impact on softgoals have a correspondence with decision alternatives and conditional probabilities and expected utilities in the DDNs respectively. Our novel approach allows the specification of preferences over the softgoals and supports reasoning about partial satisfaction of softgoals using probabilities. We report results of the application of the approach on two different cases. Our early results suggest the decision-making process of SASs can be improved by using DDNs. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.

Intuition in strategic decision making:implications for strategic decision effectiveness

Intuition can produce effective strategic decisions because of its speed and ability to solve less-structured problems. Despite this, there are only a very small number of empirical studies that have examined intuition in the strategic decision-making process. We examine the relationship between the use of intuition in the strategic decision-making process, and strategic decision effectiveness. We propose that the expertise of the decision-maker, environmental dynamism and the characteristics of the strategic decision itself moderate the relationship between the use of intuition in the strategic decision making process, and strategic decision effectiveness. We make a significant theoretical contribution by integrating the management and social-psychology literatures in order to identify the variables that affect the relationship between the use of intuition in the strategic decision-making process, and strategic decision effectiveness. This article builds upon existing empirical research that has examined intuition in the strategic decision-making process, and reconciles some of the confounding results that have emerged. The paper presents a conceptual model and research propositions, which if empirically examined, would make a significant contribution to knowledge in the strategic decision-making domain of literature.

An examination of intuition in strategic decision-making:the role of context

Intuition is a vitally important concept in strategic decision making research because it enables decision-makers to rapidly detect patterns in dynamic environments in order to cope with the time-pressured, ill-structured and non-routine nature of strategic decision-making. Despite a growing body of conceptual literature emphasising the importance of intuition in strategic decision-making; there has been very little development of theory explaining the contextual factors that cause intuition to be used in the strategic decision-making process. This paper demonstrates that by integrating different contextual variables a clear understanding of the influences on the use of intuition in strategic decision-making can be developed. This article develops an integrative theoretical model together with testable research propositions, which if empirically examined, would make a substantial contribution to knowledge.

Dynamic decision-making based on NFR for managing software variability and configuration selection

Due to dynamic variability, identifying the specific conditions under which non-functional requirements (NFRs) are satisfied may be only possible at runtime. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the dynamic treatment of relevant information during the requirements specifications. The associated data can be gathered by monitoring the execution of the application and its underlying environment to support reasoning about how the current application configuration is fulfilling the established requirements. This paper presents a dynamic decision-making infrastructure to support both NFRs representation and monitoring, and to reason about the degree of satisfaction of NFRs during runtime. The infrastructure is composed of: (i) an extended feature model aligned with a domain-specific language for representing NFRs to be monitored at runtime; (ii) a monitoring infrastructure to continuously assess NFRs at runtime; and (iii) a exible decision-making process to select the best available configuration based on the satisfaction degree of the NRFs. The evaluation of the approach has shown that it is able to choose application configurations that well fit user NFRs based on runtime information. The evaluation also revealed that the proposed infrastructure provided consistent indicators regarding the best application configurations that fit user NFRs. Finally, a benefit of our approach is that it allows us to quantify the level of satisfaction with respect to NFRs specification.

Putting children forward for epilepsy surgery:a qualitative study of UK parents' and health professionals' decision-making experiences

Background Against a backdrop of recommendations for increasing access to and uptake of early surgical intervention for children with medically intractable epilepsy, it is important to understand how parents and professionals decide to put children forward for epilepsy surgery and what their decisional support needs are. Aim The aim of this study was to explore how parents and health professionals make decisions regarding putting children forward for pediatric epilepsy surgery. Methods Individual interviews were conducted with nine parents of children who had undergone pediatric epilepsy surgery at a specialist children's hospital and ten healthcare professionals who made up the children's epilepsy surgery service multidisciplinary healthcare team (MDT). Three MDT meetings were also observed. Data were analyzed thematically. Findings Four themes were generated from analysis of interviews with parents: presentation of surgery as a treatment option, decision-making, looking back, and interventions. Three themes were generated from analysis of interviews/observations with health professionals: triangulating information, team working, and patient and family perspectives. Discussion Parents wanted more information and support in deciding to put their child forward for epilepsy surgery. They attempted to balance the potential benefits of surgery against any risks of harm. For health professionals, a multidisciplinary approach was seen as crucial to the decision-making process. Advocating for the family was perceived to be the responsibility of nonmedical professionals. Conclusion Decision-making can be supported by incorporating families into discussions regarding epilepsy surgery as a potential treatment option earlier in the process and by providing families with additional information and access to other parents with similar experiences.

A longitudinal study of Chinese managerial behaviour:an inside view of decision-making under the economic reform

This research compared decision making processes in six Chinese state-owned enterprises during the period 1985 to 1988. The research objectives were: a) To examine changes in the managerial behaviour over a period of 1985 to 1988 with a focus on decision-making; b) Through this examination, to throw light on the means by which government policies on economic reform were implemented at the enterprise level; c) To illustrate problems encountered in the decentralization programme which was a major part of China's economic reform. The research was conducted by means of intensive interviews with more than eighty managers and a survey of documents relating to specific decisions. A total of sixty cases of decision-making were selected from five decision topics: purchasing of inputs, pricing of outputs, recruitment of labour, organizational change and innovation, which occurred in 1985 (or before) and in 1988/89. Data from the interviews were used to investigate environmental conditions, relations between the enterprise and its higher authority, interactions between management and the party system, the role of information, and effectiveness of regulations and government policies on enterprise management. The analysis of the data indicates that the decision processes in the different enterprises have some similarities in regard to actor involvement, the flow of decision activities, interactions with the authorities, information usage and the effect of regulations. Comparison of the same or similar decision contents over time indicates that the achievement of decentralization varied according to the topic of decision. Managerial authority was delegated to enterprises when the authorities relaxed their control over resource allocation. When acquisition of necessary resources is dependent upon the planning system or the decision matter is sensitive, because it involves change to the institutional framework (e.g. the Party), then a high degree of centralization was retained, resulting in a marginal change in managerial behaviour. The economic reform failed to increase decision efficiency and effectiveness of decision-making. The prevailing institutional frameworks were regarded as negative to the change. The research argues that the decision process is likely to be more contingent on the decision content than the organization. Three types of decision process have been conceptualized, each of them related to a certain type of decision content. This argument gives attention to the perspectives of institution and power in a way which facilitates an elaboration of organizational analysis. The problems encountered in the reform of China's industrial enterprises are identified and discussed. General recommendations for policies of further reform are offered, based on the analysis of decision process and managerial behaviour.

Understanding dynamics of strategic decision-making in venture creation:a process study of effectuation and causation

This study draws upon effectuation and causation as examples of planning-based and flexible decision-making logics, and investigates dynamics in the use of both logics. The study applies a longitudinal process research approach to investigate strategic decision-making in new venture creation over time. Combining qualitative and quantitative methods, we analyze 385 decision events across nine technology-based ventures. Our observations suggest a hybrid perspective on strategic decision-making, demonstrating how effectuation and causation logics are combined, and how entrepreneurs’ emphasis on these logics shifts and re-shifts over time. We induce a dynamic model which extends the literature on strategic decision-making in venture creation.